View Full Version : 3DS Max Import/Export plugin
Leksey
September 16th, 2006, 03:39 PM
I have completed first version of 3DS Max plugin(versions 7.0 and 8.0 supported) for ToEE.:peace:
You can get it here: 1738
I have created my first mod using it:) Rolling-Pin is really great weapon for woman :))
Ah Greatsword was crashed, but still works :) And GreatAxe have an text "ToEE" on it but it is not visible well...
Not only weapons can be created!
1709
Some instructions:
1. Copy ToeeImpExp.dle in plugins folder of 3DS Max.
2. Launch 3DS Max and use Export/Import options to save/load files in SKM format.
"How to use" instructions in attached archive.
Source code available at: 3471
Morpheus
September 16th, 2006, 05:58 PM
Great job! :Crazy_Tig
The possibilities are endless... Any number of items, or even monsters might be created.
Now, we need some 3DS Max experts. ;)
Agetian
September 16th, 2006, 10:36 PM
Wonderful job, man! Really great, something we desperately needed all along! Congrats on completing the import/export plugin. Keep it up, I'm looking forward to seeing newer versions of the plug-in in the future! Good luck!
P.S. Thread is stuck.
- Agetian
Spellslinger
September 17th, 2006, 01:29 AM
Awesome work there! :D
Now to find someone who can actually model stuff...
Cerulean the Blue
September 17th, 2006, 02:12 AM
Woo Hoo!!!
The ability to work with models! Now that is something we really needed! :D
First Spellslinger hacking away at all the hard coded bugs, and now this! What will be next? :)
Leksey
September 17th, 2006, 03:43 AM
Great job! :Crazy_Tig
The possibilities are endless... Any number of items, or even monsters might be created.
Now, we need some 3DS Max experts. ;)
Not sure about all items and about monsters. Many of items or monster models contains a lot of animations. For now, I don't know exact format for animation (.ska file), so plugin didn't suppot any animations. But with some work in HEX we can change monsters appearance, but animations will remain......
For now I tested it only on models that contains one bone and one empty animation "item_idle". A lot of weapons contains that parameters and if we will create new it items without animations it will be easy.
Cuchulainn
September 18th, 2006, 09:19 AM
Absolutely awesome work Leksey!!:rock:
Even being limited to models without animation gives us a lot of possibilities we didn't have before. Of course like everyone hear I'm anxously waiting to see if animations are the next great obstacle to fall.
Cuchulainn.
Cujo
September 18th, 2006, 05:21 PM
now what we need is for someone to attach the body part of the lamia to the black widow so we can get a drider (or even lolth).
Allyx
September 19th, 2006, 02:58 AM
now what we need is for someone to attach the body part of the lamia to the black widow so we can get a drider (or even lolth).
Or just making Drow an available PC race eh Cujo? ;)
[EDIT] Though thinking about it, that would require Spellslinger's services.
Leksey
September 19th, 2006, 08:54 AM
now what we need is for someone to attach the body part of the lamia to the black widow so we can get a drider (or even lolth).
As I said plugin didn't support animation for now and it will require not really easy work to find out animation format... So creating monsters is not easy task.... For now plugin works good only for simple models - weapons, some containers without animations and some other items.
Or just making Drow an available PC race eh Cujo?
What is other diffrences between Drow and Elf except eyes and skin color? May be ears, but they are to small in ToEE so the differnce will not be visible.... OR some others?
If not we can just change some textures, without using 3D plugin.
krunch
September 19th, 2006, 09:15 AM
hair color
Lord_Spike
September 19th, 2006, 03:42 PM
Drow also have magic resistance and innate spell casting ability. Females & higher level drow have these abilities expanded somewhat as well. Lastly, they have better infravision.
That's what I recall off the top of my head. Anyone else?
Cujo
September 19th, 2006, 05:58 PM
the models for drow are fine, its the skins that are the problem and thats where a dll hack is required.
btw. a few things that would look good in the game would be
a kukri that looks like a kukri
a better sickle than I made
a handgun.
a flail - currently uses the heavy flail model and I think the chain is to long
a druss styled axe
Cuchulainn
September 20th, 2006, 11:29 AM
Hmm.
When attempting to fire up Max after adding ToeeImpExp.dle to the plugins directory I get an error message.
DLL <c:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\plugins\ToeeImpExp.dle> failed to initialize.
Error Code: 126 - The specified module could not be found.
Any guesses as to what might be causing this.
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
September 20th, 2006, 12:52 PM
First bug report.:)
Strange, I also use 3DS Max 8.0 and just reinstalled it , so all folders are clear. Plugin works normal...
Anyone else tried to use plugin?
I reloaded archieve with plugin, so try this.
Cuchulainn
September 20th, 2006, 02:54 PM
No, I still get the same error with the new dle.
I have max istalled to the default location, which means there is a space in the path "Pragram Files". Any chance that's causing the issue?
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
September 20th, 2006, 03:50 PM
I also have max installed in default location.
I send plugin to my friend to test. And he said all works fine.....
Don't know how to help you :(
Will try to get latest 3DS Max SDK for 8.0 Max, and build new version.
Cuchulainn
September 20th, 2006, 05:07 PM
If it works fine for both you and your friend it almost has to be something at my end. So there's probably no point rebuilding the plugin. I'll keep playing with it and let you know if I figure it out.
Can you think of any dependencies the dll might have? I'm not a programmer so it's possible I'm missing libraries present on both your machines.
I'm running:
Win2k, SP4
DirectX 9c
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
September 21st, 2006, 05:58 AM
Hm.. It seems I found a problem. I am really stupid to upload debug version of plugin :)
I uploaded release version. Try it should work.
Dependencies:
System dlls:
USER32.DLL,KERNEL32.DLL,MSVCR80.DLL,MSVCP80.DLL
3DS max dll:
CORE.DLL,MAXUTIL.DLL,GEOM.DLL,MESH.DLL.
I think problem can be only with MSVCR80.DLL,MSVCP80.DLL.
If you will meet problem again I will add to archieve this Dlls (As I know microsoft allow to redistribute it with programs).
P.S. Release version is 36 kbytes instead of 300 in Debug :)
Cuchulainn
September 21st, 2006, 09:20 AM
Heh heh heh, works like a hot damn!!! :rock:
Tried import and export with no problems. Very nice work! :thumbsup:
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
September 21st, 2006, 02:01 PM
If you will have problems with adding models to game. Send me e-mail or PM.
Cujo
September 21st, 2006, 06:46 PM
now I've just got to get 3DS MAX again.
Cuchulainn
September 26th, 2006, 04:01 PM
Hey Leksey,
I imported my first new model into toee (a kukri) and it works great, but I need some advice. Do you know how to tell toee where to grab the model? I had assumed the players hand would attach at 0.0 on the horizontal axis so I placed the kukri apropriately. When I equip the weapon in game though, the player holds it in the middle. (which looks bloody uncomfortable);-)
I'm probably missing something simple, but I thought I'd ask rather than pulling my hair out for hours.
Thanks,
Cuchulainn.
EDIT-----
Figured it out. The weapon needs to be oriented verticaly not horizontaly and the exact center of your scene (0,0,0) is where the hand attaches.
Cujo
September 26th, 2006, 07:55 PM
a couple of axes I'd like to see in the game can be found here (http://www.armor.com/2000/catalog/item024.html), here (http://www.armor.com/2000/catalog/item104.html) and here (http://www.kultofathena.com/product~item~TY0025B~name~Dwarven+War+Axe.htm)
Cuchulainn
September 26th, 2006, 08:32 PM
@Cujo Nice! The Hungarian Axe especialy looks cool. Was that a request, or do you figure you'll have Max up and running again soonish yourself?
Cuchulainn.
Cujo
September 26th, 2006, 09:33 PM
it was a request - I've lost a lot of my CDs and after a reformat the software as well :doublethu
I was also thinking of a flame sword - one with a wavey blade, I was going to make one out of a greatsword by making wavey edges but how most of the swords work isn't quite as simple as that (in one game how they made it was a handle with a big rectangle blade and alphaed it to shape - to cut down on the complexity of the modle I think)
Cujo
September 26th, 2006, 09:53 PM
and a couple of "real warhammers" would be nice. not the DnD sledge hammer styled warhammers or the bullshit stumpy little handle masive striking edge + small rear spike.
http://www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/spirals/s-hammer.htm
http://www.armor.com/pole005.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer
Leksey
September 27th, 2006, 08:44 AM
Cuchulainn - Cool work.
I wanna play Co8 5.0 with kukri :)
Ah and thank for the tip how to place weapon in hand. I also had this problem with Rolling Pin.
Cuchulainn
September 27th, 2006, 09:25 AM
There are a lot of things we could play 5.0 with now thanks to your plugin. (claps) I'll post screnies of the kukri once I'm finished, I'm still havilng issues with the texture atm. Then it's on to the Hungarian War Axe. (Mwa Ha Ha ha)
Not to seem like a greedy child on christmas morning but what are the chances of changing the plugin to handle more than one bone? I understand the holdup with animations, but a lot of the weapons/armor have multiple bones (helms, short sword, etc.).
Cuchulainn
Leksey
September 27th, 2006, 10:03 AM
So they did not conatain any animations, but have multiple bones, Right?
I think this could be done,because I have bone format specs.
Will try to implement this.
Cuchulainn
September 27th, 2006, 02:44 PM
Cool!! :thumbsup:
Yeah, no animations just multiple bones. The Bone Helm and the Short Sword are 2 I remember for sure if you want'd to see what I mean.
Thanks again,
Cuchulainn.
Cujo
September 27th, 2006, 04:23 PM
I'm currious - would it be posable to make a japanese style bow - take a normal bow and strech the top half longer by 1/3 aprox?
Leksey
September 27th, 2006, 06:01 PM
It seems bow contains animations... May be when I will add support of multiple bones and some work in HEX. This can be done.
Cujo
September 27th, 2006, 08:21 PM
thanks for that, I thought it might but wasn't sure.
Leksey
October 3rd, 2006, 06:22 PM
Some fixes made to plugin:
Added option "Apply node transform" in export options dialog.(by default is checked)
@Cuchulainn : This will solve problems with models scale and rotation of model.
Cuchulainn
October 3rd, 2006, 08:39 PM
Tested it out, works perfect.
Rotation, scale, and relative position all export. :yes:
Thanks Again!!
Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn
October 10th, 2006, 10:27 AM
Hey Leksey,
I have some more details on the texture issues. The Ambient value is always showing up in-game as black. I've had off and on problems with various parts of my models showing up as black, and had assumed that the black portion was un-textured. With my latest model 3/4 of it is black in-game. I accidently loaded the Tutorial last night which is set inside with torches as lighting, and the entire model looked perfect, albeit with a slightly orange hue from the torches. When I loaded an outside scene though the model went back to being mostly black. Once I figured out my issue was ambient light I tried a few things none of which has worked so far.
I added lights to the scene.
I unlocked the Ambient value in the material editor and tried setting it to a much lighter grey. I also tried loading the same bitmap as Difuse.
I turned on Self Illuminate both with a colour and with just a value of 100.
If there is any more info I can provide, or something else I should try, just let me know.
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
October 10th, 2006, 11:20 AM
In SKM file format there is no places for ambient or diffuse colors.... For now as I said plugin doesn't support materials export. So may be ambient color can be set manually in ".mdf" file (it is human-readable text file), i am not sure. I viewed a lot of .mdf files and it seems their support a lot of keywords, not only "Textured".For example "Color" can be ...but i am not sure what this color field mean. So If you will play with ToEE .mdf files you can figure out something...
Cuchulainn
October 10th, 2006, 02:49 PM
OK, I'll play around and see what I can figure out.
Cuchulainn.
Agetian
October 12th, 2006, 12:39 AM
OK, I sent all the information I know to Leksey so he can go on working with animations. He told me he'll try to dig things further this weekend.
@ Leksey: I was digging some more data on the keyframes, and here's what I found out:
First of all, the first two 32-bit floats that come before the keyframes are the maximum scale and maximum offset, both divided by 32767, so it's like this:
float max_scale/32767;
float max_offset/32767;
After this, we have our first block of data which is related to bones, and its format is like this, I suppose:
16bit base bone ID
16bit scale X
16bit scale Y
16bit scale Z
16bit orient X
16bit orient Y
16bit orient Z
16bit orient fourth component
16bit offset X
16bit offset Y
16bit offset Z
After the bones block is over, we have a 16-bit "-2" signalling that it's the end of the bones block.
Now, we have the keyframes block, which is as I told you, except the fact that I might have messed up with the size of the data inside. Let me know if you were able to find something out.
It *seems* like one keyframe might have multiple sets of scale/orient/offset specified under certain circumstances, but I'm not sure if this ever happens in original game files and I'm also not sure how you can guess whether it does have multiple sets or not. For now, ignore this comment unless you come to a file which has large block of data after the frame number (larger than the one normally there).
Also, in the beginning of each keyframe header, there's a 16bit frame number followed by 16bit value which seems to store *both* the base bone ID AND the keyframe flags, in the format:
(base_bone_ID << 4) | (keyframe_flags << 1) | 1
So basically, if you have base_bone_ID equal to 10 and keyframe_flags equal to 3, the value you're getting from the file is ((10<<4) | (3 << 1) | 1), which equals a 16-bit 167.
I don't know why exactly it's done in this way, but this is the way I assume you should read that value. Try it out if nothing else works.
Hope this helps.
- Agetian
Agetian
October 12th, 2006, 10:37 PM
OK, so, a clarification here. The formula I wrote above, which is:
(base_bone_ID << 4) | (keyframe_flags << 1) | 1
Stores a single 16-bit value in the form:
CCCCCCCCCCCCBBBA
Where:
C = bits for bone index (values 0-4095)
B = bits for keyframe flags (values 0-7)
A = bit 0 which is always 1 as long as the frame is used.
- Agetian
Cuchulainn
October 12th, 2006, 10:53 PM
Nice to see this still progressing (rubs hands gleefully). I'll certainly be happy to help with testing when (not if) it gets that far.
@Agetian: Very cool your finding the time for this, with this being your insanely busy time and all.
@Leksey: Very much looking forward to animations!! No great surprise but aparently the problems I was having with the skm plugin, were just user error. I have a theory what I did wrong, once I confirm it I'll post details for anyone else that has the problem.
Cuchulainn.
Edit-- Never did figure out what caused this problem but it hasn't happened again with any other models.
Agetian
October 13th, 2006, 12:43 AM
@Agetian: Very cool your finding the time for this, with this being your insanely busy time and all.
Yeah, I've just changed my priorities for a while. Unfortunately, since I'm that busy right now, I can't do a lot of things at the same time (e.g. ToEEWB and file format specs), so I decided to switch over to finding things about the SKM and SKA file formats so that Leksey can write a full-blown plugin (while he's still at it, that is ;))
- Agetian
Shiningted
October 21st, 2006, 07:27 AM
Ummm does this mean someone can make me a horse? (U know what I mean...) Lamia body + modded leucrotta head perhaps?
Or a decent cat model? Cat models are desperately needed, from simple alley toms and familiars to upsized panthers, jaguars etc. Add some tentacle and wa-la, displacer beasts. :)
Btw, I do believe we just shattered the final frontier of ToEE modding :) I should go on honeymoon more often ;)
Leksey
October 21st, 2006, 08:10 AM
@Shiningted :
We can' make a horse or a cat :( .
Now we can add just simple one bone models without animation. I am working on that, but have not many free time to do it ( work, study and I caught a chill :( )
But for now I think I have enough info on how to create difficult models with animations.. so will try to complete this plugin...
Agetian
October 21st, 2006, 09:07 AM
But for now I think I have enough info on how to create difficult models with animations.. so will try to complete this plugin...
Hey, this is great! :) If you have any further questions or something's hindering your progress, let me know (PM, e-mail, ICQ, etc.), I'll try to help. Looking forward to seeing your plugin finished some day, good luck!
- Agetian
Cuchulainn
December 17th, 2006, 02:02 AM
I've got some more details on the wierd shadows that show up on some models, so I thought I'd post them incase someone else runs into this.
The dark areas are completely independant of the texture or UVW map, they are somehow imbedded in the model itself.
Any element of your model based on a cylinder will have the bottom ring of faces partialy obscured in shadow. A workaround is to create an extra section at the bottom of the cylinder that is so small you cant see it in game. For example an axe handle only requires one section hight wise, but this would leave the botton half of the handle obscured. If you made it two equal sections verticaly the bottom quarter would be obscured. However if you make it two sections verticaly one of witch is 99% of the hight, with the other comprising the bottom 1%, the dark areas aren't large enough to see.
Any element of your model that tapers to infinity can (but won't always) create wierd shadow effects. For example a single edged sword or axe head that has a face at the spine, but tapers to a single set of vertices along the cutting edge. A workaround is to keep both sets of vertices and the face between then along you cutting edge, but scale it so small as to be invisible. So in cross section instead of V you have \_/.
If anyone else is playing around with this and having problems feel free to post a question or PM me, I'll be happy to share anything I've managed to figure out.
Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn
January 17th, 2007, 10:23 PM
Hey Leksey,
I know you're busy, but I saw your post that you are working on the viewer again, so I thought I'd post a couple of requests for you to consider.
You had said before that it might be possible to allow import/export of meshes with more than one bone as long as they don't contain animation. If it is feasable and you can find the time, that would be awesome! It would sure make working on armor a whole lot easier.
The SKA file you posted works awesome, but I was wondering if it would be possible for you to post another one without the idle animation. Or better yet with the slight movements when back and forth, but without the periodic calls to flip in a circle etc. When trying to add different weapons i'll try out the available strike animations untill I find one that works, but often the periodic flipping around of the weapon looks very out of place.
I certainly understand if you don't have time, what you've done already has been VERY helpful, just hoping as this would make it that much more usefull.
Of course if you need any beta testing/feedback on any works in progress just let me know, I'll be happy to help.
Cuchulainn.
Leksey
January 25th, 2007, 10:23 AM
@Cuchulainn: Right about time - unlucky university examination, problems on job.....
For now know all structures that .ska uses and how to read them, but still have a problems with their meanings. I added animation loading in Viewer - for simple objects such as Chests,Well and so on all worked fine. But for more complex such as monster their look terrible during aniation.... Don't know for now how to fix this...
On 3ds max import/exports : I will try to make bones export, but not sure import will work. I have not found any working example on bone import for not 3ds maxs formats.
Also as I said I still not understand all data related to bones/animations clearly, so may be a problems...
I think I will have some time at February to work on plugin. I really want to complete it.
Don't sure I undertand what you mean - to remove "idle" animation. It is present in all models and in most is just empty.
Shiningted
January 26th, 2007, 03:11 AM
Leksey - if you can VIEW simple animations, does this mean you can mod them?
Leksey
January 26th, 2007, 04:30 AM
Yes.
But only by using HEX editor - for now. It will be impossible for human to mod it through it...
Will try to add this to 3ds max plugin in february...
maggit
January 26th, 2007, 09:49 AM
Well, you have to start with something, don't you? ;)
I think that it's great news. Today chests, tomorrow
VampiricPup's monsters!
Cuchulainn
January 31st, 2007, 05:18 PM
Hey Leksey,
If the next version comes out sometime in Feb. I'll be thrilled. Certainly didn't mean to sound like I was rushing you.
Don't sure I undertand what you mean - to remove "idle" animation. It is present in all models and in most is just empty.Probably didn't explain it very well. When your PC is standing around idle whatever weapon he's holding moves back and forth slightly (which is great), but when he's been standing there for a while he flips the weapon around. That's the part I was trying to avoid, I couldn't find any reference in the text files to these idle animations, since the SKA file handles animation I was assuming it came from there. I may be totally wrong though.
I did notice when I cracked open the SKA you gave us it had a reference to "idle animation" I was hoping a SKA without that call (that didn't crash the game) might get around that problem.
Cuchulainn.
maggit
January 31st, 2007, 05:20 PM
I think there is something like a flip animation Cuch
I saw this reference in one of the text files... Don't
remember in which though... :/
--------------------------------------------------------
Look for the word fiddle...That's all that I can remember. ;)
Cuchulainn
February 1st, 2007, 12:36 PM
I think there is something like a flip animation Cuch
I saw this reference in one of the text files... Don't
remember in which though... :/
--------------------------------------------------------
Look for the word fiddle...That's all that I can remember.Yeah, Ted was sure he'd seen it somewhere too. I've browsed through virtually every file in teh dats, and a search for any file in the dats containg the text string "fiddle" returns only dialogue and spell files. I'll keep looking. :shrug:
Cuchulainn.
Shiningted
February 1st, 2007, 05:28 PM
Are you refering to the fidgets? Just looking at Elmo's, a few seem to use the idle animations
animation "greatsword_greatsword_combatfidget" "greatsword_greatsword_combatidle.mae"
albeit they don't loop, but otherwise they seem to have their own (which also don't loop).
animation "crossbow_crossbow_fidget" "crossbow_crossbow_fidget.mae"
The idle animations are all otherwise looping, so maybe just remove that loop element will stop them or make them less prevalent.
animation "sword_shield_idle" "sword_sword_idle.mae"
{
loopable
}
Cuchulainn
February 2nd, 2007, 12:16 AM
Good idea. But I can't seem to actualy effect the animations. I've tried altering the weaponname.txt file that appears to call the anims 6 ways from Sunday, and it never has any effect in-game.
Hang on you said looking at Elmo's, maybe the Player's txt file overrides the weapons? I'll try it.
Thanks, :)
Cuchulainn.
Shiningted
February 2nd, 2007, 07:19 PM
Yeah, I'd be looking at the PC .txt files. Not that all the models seem to have them :scratchhe
Leksey
February 7th, 2007, 10:45 AM
As I found vampiricpuppy and Cuchulainn discussed one problem with exporting texture coordinates.
So I think problem can be in following(not actually in exporter but in poor skm format):
In ToEE skm format for each vertex should be only one texture coordinates part : u and v.
Max allow for one vertex have multiple texture coordinates - an array of pairs.
So when you assign more then one texture coordinate for one vertex exported will be only first.
All ToEE models have one texture coordinate pair for each vertex. It is common practice to make games work more fast, but more job for moddelers
Cuchulainn
February 7th, 2007, 06:12 PM
So when you assign more then one texture coordinate for one vertex exported will be only first.Nice to have that confirmed. I had picked up on it but wasn't sure what was causing it. It does limit the modder to some of Max's more basic mapping options, but it's certainly still doable.
Once I'm more comfortable with it, I might throw up a tutorial on how to texture map in Max so it's SKM compatible.
Cuchulainn
vampiricpuppy
February 11th, 2007, 05:17 AM
so the UV seams nead to be accompanied by seams in the geometry itself?
yikes :P
i may need to do some serious remapping :(
Although i did notice a large number of model 'seams' on the existing models, so it does make things fall into place.
saicon
April 16th, 2007, 11:23 AM
if still have problem, http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/3/4/d342efa6-3266-4157-a2ec-5174867be706/vcredist_x86.exe ← Click and install.
Try 3DS again.
vampiricpuppy
April 17th, 2007, 05:58 AM
if still have problem, http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/3/4/d342efa6-3266-4157-a2ec-5174867be706/vcredist_x86.exe ← Click and install.
Try 3DS again.
whats this a fix for? :P
Cuchulainn
April 17th, 2007, 10:28 AM
It allows computers without Visual C++ installed to run apps created with a dependancy on Visula C++ libraries. It just installs the run-time side of the libraries. It probably would have fixed the intial issues I had with the debug version refusing to start, but I don't see how it could solve UV map issues in a plugin that's working.:shrug:
I did dl it and do a virus scan, seems clean. So feel free to try it if you want.
Cuchulainn.
St3vie_B
June 19th, 2007, 07:23 PM
Hello everyone,
Been a while since I posted on these forums and played ToEE. Wow - the game has changed heaps... The game has definitely gotten a lot better with all the Co8 mods - so well done on all the hard work :clap:
Anyway I've got a bit of experience in 3d modelling and animation (primarily in 3ds max, but also maya and lightwave). I'm trying to use the 3ds max import/export plugin in 3ds max 9. Can't seem to get it to work. I've copied the .dle file into the plugins folder, and when i boot up 3ds max 9 it says the plugin is incompatible with that version of max, and doens't load the plugin.
Are there any plan to configure the plugin so that it works with 3ds max 9? Leksey thats a big 'wink' 'wink' 'nudge' 'nudge' to you :mrhappy:
I'm keen to help, but want to get an idea of what the in game models are like and how detailed they are before I jump in and make models that are overly complicated and slow down the engine.
Any help would be appreciated.
S
Agetian
June 20th, 2007, 03:02 AM
I'd ask you to try and contact Leksey (by PMing him) - he has the specs of the internal model format that I sent him a few months ago. I don't have them handy atm so I can't help. Also, since he was in charge of the 3ds plugin, he'll probably be able to answer your question about whether the plugin is still in development or not. If you can team up with Leksey, you'll probably be able to make a better plugin faster.
- Agetian
Leksey
June 29th, 2007, 01:38 PM
Hello, All.
St3vie_B plugin tested on 3ds max 8 and 3ds max 7, and it uses SDK from 3ds max 7 - so that is why it can be incompatible. If I can find 3DS Max 9 SDK I can try compile new plugin.
So I stoped development for a long time, because a lot of work on my job, getting bachelor of Math degree this year - on monday final exam. And of cource because I encoutered problem with animations convertion to another format. I spended a lot of time on it and then gived up...
I have a lot of materials on plugin source code, some text files with format specifications and so on. Don't know If I will try another time to hack animation, but i want these things available for others.
So I need to ask Agetian first, think he will help me with this.
vampiricpuppy
June 29th, 2007, 10:14 PM
good luck with your exam leksey! :)
Agetian
June 29th, 2007, 10:37 PM
Hello, All.
St3vie_B plugin tested on 3ds max 8 and 3ds max 7, and it uses SDK from 3ds max 7 - so that is why it can be incompatible. If I can find 3DS Max 9 SDK I can try compile new plugin.
So I stoped development for a long time, because a lot of work on my job, getting bachelor of Math degree this year - on monday final exam. And of cource because I encoutered problem with animations convertion to another format. I spended a lot of time on it and then gived up...
I have a lot of materials on plugin source code, some text files with format specifications and so on. Don't know If I will try another time to hack animation, but i want these things available for others.
So I need to ask Agetian first, think he will help me with this.
Hey, I'm glad to hear from you, Leksey! :)
If I understand your question correctly, you'd like to ask for my permission to release the animation specifications to other people so that they can go on making the plugin. Of course, I give you the permission to send the materials I sent you to other people who will be expressing wish to either continue your work or to start their own project. Good luck at your exam!
- Agetian
Cuchulainn
July 16th, 2007, 05:25 PM
Hey Leksey,
Hope your exam went well. You mentioned the posibility of having another go at the animations so I though I'd put my request in. ;) If you do have time for this project again I'd LOVE to see a version 2 of your SKM plugin that could handle multiple bones (with no animation). It would mean that aswell as adding weapons we could add armor and shields. That's a much bigger deal than it sounds like as along with the nifty new armors we could use the ability to add virtualy any bipedal race as NPCs, which would be a HUGE step forward. :joy:
Should also be a little easier than translating the SKA format.
Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn
August 19th, 2007, 05:31 PM
Hallelujah!! Hallelujah!! :Crazy_Lio
OK since the begining I've been having intermitant issues with the export process shrouding the model in a completely non-reflective black layer. It had gotten so bad I havent been able to succesfully export a model for monthes now. Well I finaly figured it out!! So for anyone else using this plugin.
When you finished with your model as the last step before export, go to the utilities tab and "Reset Transforms" on your model, then export. (yeah OK, I should have figured that out a lot earlier) :shame:
Cuchulainn.
maggit
August 19th, 2007, 05:47 PM
Good news, though judging by your first words someone might
have thought that you've discovered a way to make animated
models. :nosebleed Well, I did for a second. ;) That'll probably
save other people trouble, so congrats! :wavey: :)
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